


shine bright

by snowflakesuccubus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Catharsis, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers, more like coming to terms with the hurt, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 15:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15560766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowflakesuccubus/pseuds/snowflakesuccubus
Summary: Caduceus finds him on watch and offers him tea.





	shine bright

Caduceus finds him on watch and offers him tea.

“For whatever’s troubling you, friend.”

He huffs a laugh at the domesticity of it, when they’ve really still just met.

“I’ve only known you a few days, big guy,” Caleb says, but accepts the tea with a murmured _danke_.

“Tea for the soul,” Caduceus replies, raising his own cup, “knows no boundaries.”

“Ja, I’ll drink to that.”

They drink. It’s good tea, all things considered. More than likely it grew from the remains of some dead schmuck in the garden, but Caleb doesn’t really care much.

After a moment, he speaks again.

“You sound a bit like him, you know.”

Caduceus raises an eyebrow, meeting Caleb’s gaze silently.

“In the way you speak. When you’re saying something weird, like you do. It reminds me of Mollymauk.”

He winces at having said the name aloud. Caduceus pays it no mind.

“What was he like, anyway, this Molly guy?”

Caleb takes another sip of tea as he chooses his words.

“He had fun,” Caleb says; “you know, he . . . he was . . . well, like a peacock. And in more than just the tattoo.”

Caduceus laughs at that. “Tattoo?”

“Oh, he had a lot of them. All over. Kind of like he turned his body into a canvas.” Another sip. “He’d always have the stupidest smile on, every time I looked at him. Couldn’t shake it.”

Caleb stares into his cup. “Not even when he was lying cold and bloody on the ground. No, the asshole was still grinning like a madman. Like even the afterlife or whatever it is that happens was funny to him.

“Lucky him to see the world in whatever way that let him smile like that,” he says, draining the last of his tea.

“More?”

“No, I’m okay, thank you.”

“All right.”

Caduceus refills his own cup, sitting there quietly after. Caleb stares up at the sky, then at the trees, and the campfire, and all over again. It’s a while before he speaks again.

“I thought it would help, you know, killing the _Arschloch_ who killed him.“

“Like justice, right. Karma.”

“But it didn’t help one fucking bit.”

Caleb gazes into his empty cup.

“It didn’t bring him back. We- we can’t bring him back. I certainly can’t do anything about it. We thought, when the horned lady pointed us in your direction . . .”

Caduceus hums, eyes falling to his own drink.

“It feels as though- as though the universe is rubbing our faces in the mud and laughing at us.”

Caduceus laughs, low in his throat. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

Caleb scrunches his face up.

“Well, when you are an asshole, it probably gives the universe license to be an asshole as well.

“He wasn’t an asshole, though. He was . . . he was pretty okay.”

His voice gets quiet, a little choked up.

“He deserved so much kinder.”

Caduceus sighs, hesitates, rests a large hand on Caleb’s shoulder. Strokes with his thumb. Caleb exhales and leans into the touch a little bit.

“I’m sorry, Caleb.”

Caleb pats Caduceus’s hand with his. “It’s- it’s okay. I will be okay.”

“It’s okay to not be okay.”

Caleb regards him for a long moment before smiling briefly, nodding.

“Yes. Yes, I think he would have liked you.”

The firbolg smiles back. They look at the stars again.

“I think I would have liked him too.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading yo cry with me


End file.
